When life gives you lemons…

…make soup stock.

Today’s truck load of lemons were practically ordered by me specifically.

But everything else in my world is right as rain so I really have nothing to complain about.  Best of all, I’ve spiced up my chicken stock and figured out how to keep fresh chives around all year without buying a new plant or starting new seeds every two months.  I still haven’t come up with a catchy name for it but if you’ve got ideas (or have seen this before), let me know.

Out of the Box

I could give you the requisite, "Sorry for the delay I've been really busy"  but instead I'll jump into tell you about the most recent goings-on of my kitchen, and try to do better next time. 

Halloween has come and gone and so has the Chocolate Spider cake that I made for our neighborhood’s Halloween party.  One of the ladies commented on how “clever” it was to dye the white cake orange but her son couldn’t eat it because he’s allergic to dyes.  Luckily, I hadn’t used any dye. 

Out of the Box

I could give you the requisite, "Sorry for the delay I've been really busy" but instead I'll jump into tell you about the most recent goings-on of my kitchen, and try to do better next time.

Halloween has come and gone and so has the Choco

The Arab Autumn

Please excuse my delay between postings.  It isn't that I haven't been keeping up with all things domestic (although, by the looks of my kitchen you'd think I'd completely forgotten cleaning supplies exist), I've just been practically underwater at that other place I go to ten hours a day.  It is amazing how time consuming making other people's lives easier can be; no matter how organized or on top of things you try to be. Despite the time-consuming nature of that pesky pay-check producing hobby I've learned a number of things:

1) homemade hummous is amazing, 2) "red pumpkins" are just like butternut squash and 3) every hour an egg is at room temperature ages it a day.  That last one was something we discovered after the refrigerator was left open overnight because a late night bottle of water was retrieved (and we weren't the first people to Google "can you eat room temperature eggs"!).

In other news, It's getting "cooler" in Doha; and by "cooler" I mean it isn't 120 degree Fahrenheit on a daily basis.  Of course, once October hits I'm not thinking things like "hey, it's finally cool enough to go to the beach again" I'm stuck with thoughts of pumpkin pie, sweatshirts, football season and the most perfect baking weather known to man. While it isn't exactly baking weather around here it is, at the least, softball season.  And the Embassy softball team (which we play on) is 2-0.  In any event, I'm trying to keep up with both softball and baking.  This afternoon I added an RBI to my stats and made Curried-Apple tarts which, in my humble opinion, are a pretty great start to, what I lovingly (read: tongue-in-cheek) refer to as, the "Arab Autumn".  Click through for the recipe.

Orange Marmalade Truffles and Incompetence

Today my day job was rather frustrating.  The level of incompetence in the world at large is continually astounding to me.  People refuse to believe that things can still be done properly by hand. "If Microsoft Office can't do it... It can't be done!" I believe that if something isn't pleasing to the palate, the eye, your sense of touch, or your sensibilities in general then there's probably something wrong with it.  And you would think that people could look at something and say, "Wow, that's asymmetrical and completely uncoordinated.  Let's take another stab at this."  But they don't and unprofessional presentations and eye-sores abound. Today the dilemma was a presentation that is going to be given by my co-workers on Wednesday.

[caption id="attachment_14" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Thank you, Mom, for the photogenic teacups!"][/caption]

Last One Home is a Rotten Egg

I raced my husband home this evening.  Instead of picking me up as per usual I grabbed a cab and sent him a text on the way.  Little did I know, he had recently left his office and, as he informed me, was going to beat me home. Thinking I was being clever I messaged him, "Loser has to make dinner."

Of course, I was expecting to be home last and I was already thinking about the fresh basil focaccia bread I was going to bake and deciding how to cook the lamb sausage and roasted peppers (the debate between pan-friend and oven-baked was pretty intense).  But, to my surprise, I won.

Then, despite my plans to cook dinner anyway, I was caught up playing phone tag with Qatar Airways trying to get one of my bosses on a plane in enough to to get to Dubai for dinner.  To make a long story short, I came downstairs from my game of tag and the kitchen smelled amazing.  Lo and behold, my incredibly handsome husband was cooking.

What was for dinner you ask?  A Halloumi Grilled Cheese Sandwich on Wheat Toast with Roasted Yellow Peppers, fresh slices of tomato and basil.

It was perfect, and even though I was looking forward to an evening in the office... a little bit of a break was wonderful.